#Railnatter

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#RailNatter Episode 173: The Great British Ticket Office Closure Jul 05, 2023

Show notes

In a very last minute change to the schedule, we are in fact going to do a good old fashioned #RailNatter Q&A on today's horrible news about ticket office closures.

Get your ragey questions ready and join the show LIVE at 7pm to get stuck in!

Useful RMT campaign page with all the various consultation links: https://www.rmt.org.uk/campaigns/rail/save-ticket-offices/

Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch at https://garethdennis.co.uk/merch. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

#RailNatter Episode 172: A Case Study In Being Wary Of The Hydrogen Hype Jun 28, 2023

Show notes

This week we are joined by Juliet Phillips from E3G to talk about how hydrogen has been disrupting the home heating market... and not for the better. It's a sorry tale that we in transportation should pay close attention to.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

#RailNatter Episode 171: It’s The 120th Birthday Of The Windscreen Wiper Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

It's a fun one, and some engineering history for you all... 120 years ago, give or take a few days, the patent was placed for what would become the modern windscreen wiper, a vital safety device that we all take for granted.

But how many of them can I find in the @NatRailwayMuseum ? Why do we know of so few women inventors? Why do I always end up in the Warehouse?

All questions I'll attempt to tackle LIVE(ish) at 7pm on Wednesday - and there'll be challenges for you, the viewer!

#RailNatter Episode 170: What went wrong at the National College for High Speed Rail? Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

In sad news, a vital facility for plugging the UK rail skills gap has been abandoned to rot... But why?

We'll talk about how the college came about, its poor management from the off, the non-existent strategic planning that led to its demise, and will remind ourselves of what we've lost.

Join LIVE at 7pm on Wednesday!

#RailNatter Episode 169: Achieving zero emissions with more mobility and less mining Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

This week we are talking all things mobility and mining, and we've the absolute pleasure of being joined by Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College.

With her research being focused on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology and social movements, she's the perfect person to explain why building our transport future around resource-intensive technologies such as lithium batteries is a non-starter, and indeed that we should be pushing back against it as hard as we can.

Join us LIVE at 7pm UK time!

Link to the More Mobility, Less Mining project: https://www.climateandcommunity.org/more-mobility-less-mining

#RailNatter Episode 168: Driverless lies leave Tesla in a muddle May 31, 2023

Show notes

Okay, so we won't just be talking about Elon Musk fumbling the bag... It's a news episode and there's plenty to catch up on!

#RailNatter Episode 167: Why do crossing noses crack? May 24, 2023

Show notes

Our very special pilgrimage site of Colton Junction suffered a catastrophic (but all too common) failure this week, and so it seems like a good chance to talk about crossing noses, what they are, why they fail and how we can stop them failing.

May or may not include gratuitous imagery of Colton Junction's fabulous equal splits.

#RailNatter Episode 166: Two half-forgotten but important railway crashes from the 1980s May 17, 2023

Show notes

This week we are looking at two rail crashes, one at Pitlochry in Scotland and another at Pershore in Worcestershire, that took place in the 1980s.

Thankfully, neither involved serious injuries, but both incidents can teach us a few things, despite having been mostly forgotten... Including the unforeseen side-effects of introducing new bits into dynamic engineering systems like railways.

#RailNatter Episode 165: What really happened when the Tesco tunnel collapsed? May 10, 2023

Show notes

This week's #RailNatter is a return to Gerrards Cross and all the shenanigans that led a tunnel with a Tesco on it to collapse onto a live railway...

Why did the HSE not publish their original report? Well, thanks to an intrepid fan of the show, we've finally got hold of it! We'll be lawyering up as we flick through the pages of the draft report and stare in horror and the engineering negligence that nearly led to a multi-fatality rail disaster.

#RailNatter Episode 164: Should you go fast or slow over a collapsed rail bridge? May 03, 2023

Show notes

It's an age-old question... A rail bridge is out, only the rails are left, so do you take the train fast or slow over the bridge?

There's a lot to think about: gravity, dynamics, waves, stiffness, materials, energy, vibrations... All combine to give us the answer. But what is it? It's slow - you obviously drive slowly over the dang bridge! Anyway, hopefully this will explain why!

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